Preview: 2013 Nissan Altima

2013 Nissan Altima.

Nissan

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: May 24, 2012

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Nashville, Tenn. • Quietly, Nissan’s Altima has become Canada’s best-selling Japanese family sedan, stealthily overtaking and then passing perennial front-runners, the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, once thought invincible. Not including the 2,000 or so coupes sold in Canada that also bear the Altima name, that means Nissan owns more than 8% of the Canadian family sedan segment. That, in case, you’re wondering, translated into 12,537 sales last year.

Perhaps it’s a measure of my increasingly bald palette and the geriatric synapses it clothes, but I still think of the Altima as the Johnny-come-lately of the mid-sized segment, its entire raison d’être the addition of a cheaper, four-cylinder family sedan to the segment when Nissan couldn’t stomach the idea of Cheap Charlie-ing its Maxima to compete with the then-dominant Camry. Splitting the segment into the more luxurious Maxima and the cheaper Altima seemed to make sense back in 1992, Nissan then frustrated that its superior but more expensive V6-powered Maxima could not compete in price and sales with the Camry and Accord, both available with four-cylinder engines.

It may have been logical, but it wasn’t initially a huge success. In order to differentiate its now (semi) competitive products — again, a seemingly wise plan back then — the Altima was smaller and noticeably cheaper than the Maxima. While definitely reliable and providing relatively good value, it always felt, well, lesser, the margin between the Maxima and Altima seemingly gaping. That might have appeased the marketers looking for differentiation, but it did not make the salesperson’s job easier.

Fast-forward 20 years and the overwhelming impression of the newly introduced 2013 edition of the Altima is one of surprising opulence. Oh, sure, the company still trumpets its bargain-basement price — something it has to do as both the Camry and Accord increasingly sell on price point — and the company is especially proud of its parsimony at the pumps. But the overwhelming sensation is one of surprising luxury, the build quality, materials and equipment level elevated enough to make one wonder how Nissan will make its Maxima sufficiently hedonistic to justify its price premium.

For one thing, the Altima is fairly festooned with time-saving devices, including a four-way rear camera that does double-double duty as a backup camera, a detector of moving objects (as in toddlers below eye level), a lane departure warning system and a blind spot warning system. There’s also streaming audio via Bluetooth, hands-free text messaging via NissanConnect, a TFT information display in the main gauge set and some seats billed as “zero-gravity” that Nissan claims are inspired by NASA rocketships (methinks the company’s MBAs were pushing the hyperbole a little too far on this one).

But, by far my favourite bit is the Easy Fill Tire Alert, which not only monitors each tire’s pressure independently but also alerts you when you’ve pumped enough air back into the balky rubber doughnut, no fiddly tire pressure gauge needed. It might not sound like much, but it’s another case of just when you think there’s nothing useful left to modernize, some genius comes out with an advancement so obvious you wonder why you didn’t patent it 20 years ago and retire on the proceeds.

Despite its epicurean additions, Nissan feels the Altima will sink or swim on its frugality, so, despite the addition of numerous new features (see above: tires), its base price has been reduced by $1,600. Even more important for the green-obsessed automaker (see Nissan Leaf) is the company’s claim that the Altima has the best highway fuel economy rating of all its non-hybrid or diesel competition. Indeed, the entire theme for the press introduction was “38,” the 2013’s Environmental Protection Agency-rated fuel economy in U.S. miles per gallon (Transport Canada figures are not expected for a few weeks, but it translates into roughly 6.2 litres per 100 kilomentres). Our drive route was peppered with “38” signs to celebrate the new Altima’s parsimony.

One result of Nissan’s obsession with fuel economy is that it remains the only mainstream manufacturer fully committed to the quirky continuously variable transmission. CVTs, unlike conventional automatics, which have distinct gears, vary the gear ratios, well, continuously. In effect, an automotive CVT operates like a snowmobile transmission, the engine held at a certain rpm while accelerating the car forward and the transmission gradually changing its gear ratios as the speed increases (the opposite of a normal transmission, which sees an engine spin from low to high revs in each gear while accelerating). The issue is that the general motoring public, long used to the shifting of discreet gears, finds it disconcerting to have a car accelerating while the engine note doesn’t change. Punch a CVT-equipped car for a long acceleration run up a hill and it soon sounds like a tramp steamer straining against a strong headwind. Most companies have dropped the CVT for this reason.

On the other hand, Nissan credits improvements to its CVT with 40% of the Altima’s fuel economy improvements (a 36-kilogram reduction in weight, lower-rolling-resistance tires, electric steering, a “smart” alternator and various engine efficiency improvements account for the rest). The majority of the CVT’s gains come from its wider range of available gear ratios (the difference between its highest and lowest gear ratio), a whopping 7.0:1, says Nissan, wider than even the best eight-speed automatics available. That means the Altima’s engines (both the 2.5-litre four and widely acclaimed VQ35DE 3.5L V6 are mated to the high-tech tranny) spin quite slowly at highway speeds; hence, the Altima’s dramatically improved highway consumption.

With the torquey and incredibly smooth 3.5L V6, the CVT’s comportment disadvantages are hardly apparent. The engine hardly ever needs to rev hard and, even if it does, NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) is so well contained that it’s little bother. The base 2.5L four, however, needs to rev harder and is rougher running, so the CVT’s droning exhaust bleat is more noticeable. It is, however, better contained than earlier Nissan CVT efforts and the company has added a Sport setting, which artificially adds “gear shifts” so that we the elderly and inflexible can feel at home in our new-fangled car. Considering that the base four represents about 90% of all Altima sales, the effort was not misplaced. Still, given a choice, I would opt for a conventional automatic transmission.

Nissan has also upped the ante in road holding, somehow incorporating an even more sophisticated independent rear suspension system into its bargain-basement price. New — and Nissan says a segment first — control link bushings better dampen road noise (a noticeable improvement) while also helping toe angle control for better cornering. The Altima also features something called Automatic Understeer Control (AUC), a fancy name for braking the inside front wheel under hard cornering to reduce the front-wheel-drive layout’s traditional propensity to push the front end. Driving here in Tennessee, where the rural constabulary seems particularly vigilant, I decline to test Nissan’s claims that it eliminates understeer. The company does claim, however, that, unlike vehicle stability control systems that are reactive (i.e., they start all this braking of individual wheels after you’ve begun to lose control), AUC is proactive, detecting conditions that might lead to understeering and correct them before the rubber gets all slidey. An electrically boosted steering system completes the handling equation, though Nissan’s system still incorporates hydraulics for better feedback through the steering wheel. (It still feels over-boosted, though, like so many Asian steering systems.)

Already the third-best-selling mid-sized sedan — and, as Nissan’s public relation flacks so often mention, now ahead of the Camry and Accord — the Altima should continue its winning streak, if for no other reason than all this goodness starts at a mere $23,698.

Family sedans is suddenly a hyper-competitive segment. It seems like only a year ago we were telling you how much more advanced Hyundai’s new Sonata was. Since then, the Camry and Kia’s Optima have both been refreshed and Ford’s Fusion and the Chevy Malibu are due for complete makeovers. It’s quite a contrast to a few years ago when pundits thought the family sedan segment was down for the count. So, yes, Nissan’s remake of its hot-selling Altima is excellent. It needs to be.